“We’re live!” It always starts like this, with the person at the mixer shouting because you’ve got the headphones on already and you’re listening to the music fading away. You take a deep breath. And then you’re off, telling stories, expressing opinions, interviewing people, providing information, numbers and facts, and launching into the ether the sounds of songs, famous and not-so-famous, all on radio waves that spread out a few kilometres in some cases, in others across whole countries. But these are also waves which stretch back into the past for more than a century, 116 years to be precise, and which were transformed into the Morse dots and dashes sent by Guglielmo Marconi in 1895 and by Nikola Tesla in 1893.

They were transformed too in the message “one - two - three - four, is it snowing where you are Mr. Thiesen? If it is, would you telegraph back to me?” These words, spoken by Reginal Fessenden, were the first radio transmission – the first time the human voice had been broadcast. This kicked everything off and we had the birth of circular broadcasting, and the founding of the BBC in 1921 and EIAR (Ente Italiano Audizioni Radiofoniche) in 1928. It became a torrent, a river of words, programmes and famous moments that demonstrated day after day the power of radio – as Orson Welles showed in 1938, a power that was strong enough to make the whole world believe that aliens had landed on earth.

Italy saw the birth of its national broadcaster, RAI, in 1949, then the first radio plays, and in 1951 the historic live transmission from the Sanremo Music Festival (won by Nilla Pizzi with L'Edera). The river became a flood with the start of commercial radio and the first independent stations, which acted as megaphones for dissent and the desire for change. There was Radio Alice with its open mikes, and Radio AUT with the voice of the unforgettable (later murdered) Peppino Impastato, who could use the “power” of radio to make the Mafia afraid. Then it was Boncompagni and Arbore in Chiamate Roma 3131, historic Italian transmissions, and the broadcasts and the voices of DJs that we remember fondly ourselves – and that song that’s suddenly played on the radio when you least expected it and, as Lou Reed sings, can save your life.

It’s a fascinating medium, one with a wealth of stories, some of which have been made into Hollywood films, including the powerful and moving The King’s Speech, which told the story of George VI, and Good Morning Vietnam with Robin Williams, which was based on the life of the soldier/radio comedian Adrian Cronauer. But there’s also been I Love Radio Rock (with Philipp Seymour Hoffman), Talk to Me (Oliver Stone), Radio America (Robert Altman) and Radio Days (Woody Allen) and the very Italian Lavorare con Lentezza and Radio Freccia. There’s much still to say about this powerful medium, which was forgotten for a while because of the rise of TV.

But radio, dusted off and transformed by new technologies, has made a comeback. The transistors and the valves have become mp3s and the live broadcast has become a podcast you can listen to when you want. So many happy returns to radio: you’re 110 but you’re looking good. Radio is a feminine word in Italian, and no surprise. To paraphrase D'Annunzio, the medium is a woman: it has the grace, the elegance and the vivacity of a seductress.